True confession time: I'd never read Ernest Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize-winning
The Old Man and the Sea until a couple of weeks ago, for this column. Yeesh, I know, I know, and I'm sorry. Walk away from this column if you must, convinced I'm not qualified to give you any advice for your ELA classroom. I wouldn't blame you. All I can say is that the high school I went to didn't have a cracker-jack curriculum, and, um, I hate fish. I really do. I have a phobia about all creatures of the sea, actually, and fish aren't even my most dreaded. Let's put it this way: if the book was titled
The Old Man and the Squid, this column would be about a Jane Austen book.
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November 26, 2008
Last week in the first part of our interview with journalist David Wolman about his book Righting the Mother Tongue, he told us how he was inspired to set out on a journey to discover the origins of the maddening English spelling system. Now in part two, Wolman explains why ambitious spelling reforms are doomed to failure, and how 21st-century technology may be accomplishing what the reformers were never able to do. He also muses on the enduring popularity of the National Spelling Bee.
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